By David Balakrishnan, for string quartet. As heard on the album “Spider Dreams.”

Overall description of the movements: “The complete version of the ‘Spider Dreams Suite” is seven movements, these four included here are the ones that were most suitable to being performed as individual pieces on their own, and they work together well as a grouping, in the tradition of the typical western European 19th century four movement string quartet compositional model.” Length: 24:00. (to purchase individual movements separately, click on the respective title below)

II. Texas Tarantella

“I first heard fiddler extraordinaire Mark O’Connor when he was sixteen years old, the year he won his third national fiddle championship. I was blown away. No less devastating was my first in-depth foray into the genius of Ludwig Van Beethoven. “Texas Tarantella” is a fairly brazen attempt to combine Mark’s waltz and hoedown fiddle phrasing style with the dark and devious contrapuntal machinations of Mr. Beethoven.” Length: 4:54